Unlocking Human Potential

Alexi Robichaux was a rising star, but he’d had a few setbacks. He left his job after realizing his “tank was empty.” Now an entrepreneur, he was on a bumpy road, unsure how to make his vision a reality. Then, he started working with his coach.?

During our conversation on the?Disrupt Yourself?podcast, Alexi shared that,?as a society, we’ve somehow begun to believe that if you need practice at work, you can’t do the job. If you need to practice to perform in the workplace, it’s a sign of weakness.?But, when you consider the peak performers in sports, music, or the military, the practice is 90% of the work.?Tom Brady, one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time, practices hours a day, year-round, to play in 17 regular-season games.?And what is behind the world’s best performers? Who is at every practice for a sports team? A coach.?

So how does this translate to those of us who aren’t professional athletes or performers??What do coaching and practice look like in the workplace? How do you approach each workday as 90% practice and 10% performance? You find someone who can help you put your reality into perspective. You engage a professional coach.?

You won’t find a coach armed with a whistle and stopwatch but someone who can ask the right questions to help you. As?Carol Kauffman?says, “follow the trail of dreams for [you] to live the life [you] want.”?Someone to support you, someone who is there to help you unlock your potential, to coach you through your S Curve.

Coaches all have tools in their toolbox to help people become who they want to be through regular practice and scheduled reflection.?And in a post-pandemic world, organizations and their leaders are particularly interested in such transformations. A?2021 Egon Zehnder?study found that 80% of CEOs strongly agree they need to transform the organization and themselves; it was only 26% pre-pandemic.?

Coaches act as accountability partners, truth-tellers, and safe spaces to work through challenges.?They ask questions that help individuals find the answers for themselves.?They create opportunities to practice and to learn. They create momentum to scale the S Curve.?

This is why I love to be coached and why I love coaching. Growth is our default setting, but sometimes it’s nice to have that bonus prefrontal cortex—the brain region implicated in tasks such as planning complex cognitive behavior and decision making. And as a coach, I can tell you it’s an honor to watch people unlock their potential.?

Coaching is not just about performance or moving up the organizational leadership ladder. One coaching tool that has become more popular in the past few years is the ability to focus on well-being.?According to Alexi and the BetterUp data, about 50 percent of individuals wanted to focus on well-being or interpersonal relationships before the pandemic. Today, well-being or interpersonal relationships are the top themes people want to focus on with their coaches.

And for good reasons.?

If well-being factors aren’t tracked, it’s hard to develop or improve other leadership skills.?If you haven’t trained physically and mentally, it’s hard to scale a mountain, no matter how bad you want it. Without a healthy foundation, growth is difficult.

No one would ever expect Tom Brady to win a Superbowl without hours of practice or an outstanding coach.

Why would you and your team be any different?

What support could you use in your growth journey??

Are there well-being factors you need to address to pick up new leadership skills?